NAME

Clone - recursively copy Perl datatypes

SYNOPSIS

  package Foo;
  use parent 'Clone';

  package main;
  my $original = Foo->new;
  $copy = $original->clone;
  
  # or

  use Clone qw(clone);
  
  $a = { 'foo' => 'bar', 'move' => 'zig' };
  $b = [ 'alpha', 'beta', 'gamma', 'vlissides' ];
  $c = Foo->new;

  $d = clone($a);
  $e = clone($b);
  $f = clone($c);

DESCRIPTION

This module provides a clone() method which makes recursive copies of nested hash, array, scalar and reference types, including tied variables and objects.

clone() takes a scalar argument and duplicates it. To duplicate lists, arrays or hashes, pass them in by reference. e.g.

    my $copy = clone (\@array);

    # or

    my %copy = %{ clone (\%hash) };

SEE ALSO

Storable's dclone() is a flexible solution for cloning variables, albeit slower for average-sized data structures. Simple and naive benchmarks show that Clone is faster for data structures with 3 or less levels, while dclone() can be faster for structures 4 or more levels deep.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2001-2012 Ray Finch. All Rights Reserved.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

AUTHOR

Ray Finch <rdf@cpan.org>

Breno G. de Oliveira <garu@cpan.org> and Florian Ragwitz <rafl@debian.org> perform routine maintenance releases since 2012.